Surface Cleaner: Wheels vs. Floater

[HotShot 34]

I have a 3000 psi, 5 gpm hot water unit. I will be doing a lot of driveways, drive-thrus, dumpster areas and sidewalks. I need to get my surface cleaner soon, and I've read most of the threads on here about them. My question is what benefits do the wheeled cleaners have over the floaters? And which, in your guys' experience would work best in my situation?

I was looking at the "Big Guy" and the original floater. From all of the past posts it looked like everybody counted the caster models out. Why?

I know it's kind of a lot of questions, but your help is appreciated...

[Mike Williamson 198]

Okay, I guess that's what I expected to hear thanks Mike. Do you think the cheaper Whirl-a-way is a good unit to start out with, for the price? What I'm looking for is a dependable spinner for under $500 that will run efficient with a 4gpm unit.

Sure, it'll do just as good a job cleaning, you just may wind up replacing parts sooner, and sometimes that can be a problem if it breaks in the middle of a job. I know Whisperwash is very good about getting parts out fast...I ordered a new spinner bar, brush, and left handle assembly from Bob at PressureTek and it showed up the next day, drop shipped from WW.

You say under $500.00, but for only another $150.00, you can get the top of the line. Better to pay the extra now, IMO.

[Mike Williamson 198]

The maxima is a 4 sprayer bar. The big guy is available in 2 or 4 bar sprayer. It is a matter of preference.Just think how a big mower works as long as it is moving it will cut grass as will a 2 bar sprayer will clean very well. Mike I love the casters it weighs like 38 lbs very light to move around ,it weighs I think 2 lbs less than the maxima.

I guess I'd have to try it with casters first before making any mods to it, if I do ever wind up going that route. I likely will...I'm moving more in the direction of trying to get regular contract commercial work, and that would come in very handy. Boy those handles are long, though!!

[VanDiesel99 14]

This always confuses people. I am talking about a cross rather than a single bar. Not talking about the amount of nozzles on each bar, that is almost unimportant. If you have two bars running perpindicular to each other(the only company I have seen offering it is Steel Eagle), it would clean almost twice as fast. I had a custom setup built for my Pressure Tek Bad Boy surfacer(which uses a similar aluminum bar as the Big Guy), that is basically a 3/8in cross with a tapped and threaded hole in the top and an adapter(3/8in male to female) to mount to the swivel. I used 3/8 galv piping and 90deg elbows at the end to make my own 4 bar assembly that would fit. The only problem is that the guy who made it thought that a BRASS 3/8in cross would have enough "meat" to adequately thread and connect to the adapter. Problem is, he was wrong and the adapter only takes about three threads and doesn't stay perfectly 90 degrees. This makes the assembly wobble. It works great other than the fact that it is probably going to wear the bearing in the swivel out faster. I am going to have a machinist friend of mine see if you can make something that will work a little better out of stainless. Will let you guys know how it goes.

[PLD 14]

What I haven't been able to understand is why those big surfacers don't come with 4bar spinners rather than just a 2bar(or cross versus single bar). Obviously a 4 bar 4 nozzle assembly would clean faster than a two bar(and this would defeat the problem of not being able to spin that one bar fast enough to keep up with zebra striping. Any ideas?

Striping occurs when the operator moves the surfacer forward the width of one cleaning "cut" faster than the bar can make 1/2 revolution. This causes the cleaning pattern not to overlap and creates the familiar stripes. A 4 nozzle crossbar would drop that angular time to 1/4 revolution thus permitting faster forward motion. For example here are the maximum walk speeds assuming a 1" cut:

2 bar = 1.73 ft/sec (1.18mph)

4 bar = 3.47 ft/sec (2.36mph)

As you can see, the latter much approximates the normal walking speed of 3mph.

You can also walk faster if you widen the cut by replacing 15^ tips with 25^ tips. This however, will weaken cleaning power. Depending on the substrate and pump used to drive the surfacer, this may increase or decrease cleaning speed. As long as the 25^ tips and water flow are sufficient to remove all the dirt, cleaning speed with increase. If not, you will increase the walk speed, but decrease it again with a second pass.

All that said, has anyone ever used a 2 bar (straight), 4 nozzle surfacer?

[Mike Williamson 198]

Amen. The big guy could tap two more holes and switch from 2.5's to 1.5's and clean much faster...

You mean have two nozzles side by side, increasing the width of the spray pattern?

That'd be interesting to do, especially with my 8gpm machine...I could still use 2.5 tips and get good pressure. Spray bar for the Big Guy is about $90.00, might be worth an experiment! I may have to dig out my tap and die kit!

[PLD 14]

You mean have two nozzles side by side, increasing the width of the spray pattern?

That'd be interesting to do, especially with my 8gpm machine...I could still use 2.5 tips and get good pressure. Spray bar for the Big Guy is about $90.00, might be worth an experiment! I may have to dig out my tap and die kit!

Yep. And with that much power, you could run two 25^ 2.5 tips at an angle (for rotation) and two 1.5's straight down for maximum cleaning power.